


The Final Game

by x_los



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-07
Updated: 2008-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:48:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Master wins, and the Doctor's attempts to talk his way out of it prove less than successful. Darkfic with consent issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

Title: The Final Game  
  
Author: [](http://x-los.livejournal.com/profile)[ **x_los**](http://x-los.livejournal.com/)    
  
Rating: NC-17  
  
Pairing: Three/Delgado!Master  
  
Chapter: Part I of III  
  
Summary: In which the Master wins, and the Doctor's attempts to talk his way out of it prove less than successful. Darkfic with consent issues.   
  
Beta: [](http://deborah-judge.livejournal.com/profile)[ **deborah_judge**](http://deborah-judge.livejournal.com/), which went much like:  
Me: How can I kill my purple prose?  
Her: ...you mean, how Delgado!Master /talks/?  
Me: ...ah.  
Her: Yep.  


 

 

PART I

 

"A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him..."  
  
\--The Final Problem, Arthur Conan Doyle

 

 

 

 

When he was with the Doctor he did not close his eyes. Not ever. He’d spent enough time over the centuries with his eyes tightly closed, never looking down, imagining that the mouth on him was  _his_  mouth, the hands steadying his hips were  _his_  hands, to waste the moment when the name he choked when he came was actually the right one. He snapped his hips into that finally willing mouth with his eyes wide open and shuddered through a climax still looking at the Doctor, still mapping him with his hands, with his mind.

 

When the Doctor pressed his head to the inside of his thigh and nuzzled like an adoring pet, like a kept thing, so deliciously dependent on him, so obviously unable and unwilling to leave, the bliss he felt burned him, and he wished he were already hard again so he could take him, just for that.

 

He pulled the Doctor up and kissed him brutally, pushed into the other’s slack mouth and needily fucked with his tongue. The Doctor didn’t make a sound either of pleasure or protest because he couldn’t make any sound at all.

 

***

 

Installing himself properly on the throne took roughly a week. He’d kept the Doctor at his side, hoping to wear him down with inclusion, with attrition. The Doctor always thought he knew best how to go about things—and with the exception of the Master himself, he was right. There was no one better qualified to assist Earth’s new ruler, or with more of an interest in making life bearable for Earth’s inhabitants. It was only a matter of time before the Doctor got tired of watching the inefficiency of the Master’s troops, the unnecessary suffering of the humans, and had suggestions of his own.

 

The Master welcomed the prospect. Ruling a world by oneself with not so much as a single competent, trusted lieutenant was exhausting. And the Doctor fully co-opted would be an able partner. A brilliant consort. He just had to be brought around to see that for himself.

 

They could be so good for this planet, for the Doctor’s precious humans, the two of them. So the take-over hadn’t been bloodless—within a generation there’d be an end to war and famine, and the population would flourish thanks to anachronistic medical technology and science, grow to higher levels and enjoy a higher standard of living than they ever could have without him. Wasn’t that better? He was sure the Doctor was going to enjoy being a god—smiling that cheerful grin as their adoring human subjects acknowledged him (the humans, he expected, would break within a generation or three—an eye blink, really), their Master’s merciful other half.

 

Channeling all the Doctor’s scattered benevolence, energy and intelligence into a single cause that he had to look at every day, that he couldn’t flee from as soon as his self-appointed task was done, would make the Doctor realize his own power. He would have to grasp his own majesty, confronted with the daily evidence of how much effect he could have on these tiny human lives. He’d be so grateful for his patient Master’s devotion, for how tirelessly the Master had worked on his behalf, when he came to a proper understanding of his new role. The Doctor would be lovelier than ever in his unbridled power, and constantly on his knees worshipping his own god. From a purely selfish perspective, he was rather looking forward to that bit. Well, not _purely_  selfish, as the Doctor was going to enjoy that as well.

 

On the second day of his imprisonment the Doctor had managed to knock the Master out. And then he’d tried to run. He’d been shot in the leg by the Master’s guards before he got a hundred yards, and the Master tightened security further when he came to, because he shouldn’t have made it ten yards.

 

The Master had blinked blearily and staggered over to where the guards (off-planet mercenaries, loyal solely to the Master’s galactic banking reserves, next to which the Doctor’s good intentions held little interest and even less bargaining capability) were holding the Doctor. He’d not been treated yet, and he winced when the Master knelt to touch the wound. He pressed it almost tenderly, parting his lips and closing his eyes when the Doctor hissed at the pressure, and opening them again as if he was shaking something off. The Master brought a hand under the Doctor’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes.

 

“Don’t try that again.” He said very calmly. He’d not treated the wound other than to give the Doctor a penknife to get the bullet out and some rubbing alcohol to clean it up with. It’d heal by itself, given Gallifreyan robustness, and if it slowed the Doctor down a little while he was still inclined towards escape attempts and other dramatic gestures, so much the better.

 

There were international organizations to dismantle, UNIT among them. The Master made an inroad there. Standing before the Doctor’s former co-workers, all of them bound and haggard from the detention camp, he’d turned towards the other Time Lord.

 

“People with their expertise and organizational skill do present a danger to me. I’d be wise to simply eliminate them.” He examined his fingernails. “Their deaths would be regrettable, but necessary.”

 

“You can afford to be merciful, can’t you?” The Doctor said, guarded. “Look at them—without their weapons and resources they can’t possibly present a real threat to you.”

 

“Nevertheless, it’s better to err on the side of caution, isn’t it?” The Master’s tone was pleasant. The Doctor didn’t say anything, but the Master pressed the issue. “Well, Doctor? Isn’t it?”

 

Captain Yates was curled around Jo protectively, as if the weight of his body on her shoulders could keep her from being hit. Or worse. Jo was lovely, and the guards were physiologically similar to humans, so there was the threat of worse. Yates seemed to think he could hide her from the gaze of strangers, tucked against his heart like a secret.

 

She looked like a wilted flower in the same bright dress she’d been wearing the day of the invasion. It was dirty now from days of wear. The sweat and the grime on the cheery print looked garish. Obscene. They all looked like children, with their faces so soft and slack with exhaustion, so vulnerable.

 

Jo could see the Doctor. They all could. They were all looking at him, and the pressure of their eyes made his skin crawl, made him feel so ashamed to have spent the night somewhere comfortable, for having been allowed to shower, for having been given clean clothes stolen from his own TARDIS.

 

Benton seemed to have been shot at some point. The shoulder of his sweater was caked rust-brown, and his arm hung stiff and awkward, like a stranger to his body.

 

“Please spare them,” the Doctor seemed to slump in the asking. They looked so tired, and they’d taken him in when he had nowhere else to go, and he wanted nothing so much as for them to survive this.

 

“For all of their lives?” The Master seemed amused. “You could give me more than _that_.”

 

“Please, Master.” The Doctor insisted, quietly, catching his eye and holding it with a searing, intense gaze. “Please,” he repeated.

 

The Master made a motion with his hand, and the guards prodded the tattered remnants of UNIT out of the room. “There now,” he rested a hand on the Doctor’s back. Jo looked over a shoulder for a last glimpse of the man who’d been her best friend, her mentor. Her eyes widened slightly at the too-familiar glide of a hand across the velvet covering the Doctor’s back. Even from across the room she could see the Master’s fingers find the Doctor’s shoulder and tighten in a possessive clutch. The Doctor caught her starring and winced visibly as the Master continued with “That wasn’t so terrible, now was it?”

 

And then they were out the door, and the Doctor was fairly certain he’d never see any of them again.

 

“Tell your people not to hurt them. Don’t let your troops touch them.” He started at the inappropriate volume of his own voice. The surprising force.

 

“They won’t be harmed.” The Master promised. “The mercenaries are very professional. No sloppy abuse. No nasty surprises. Your friends will be fine, Doctor.”

 

“They need medical care. And some new clothes.” His voice was quiet now. All the fight had gone out of it.

 

“Of course Doctor,” the Master soothed, his hand stroking gently. He pretended not to notice the way the Doctor was tense, nervous under his touch. That too would pass in time. “They’ll be properly cared for. I’m not a monster. Good beds and medical attention all around, since you asked.” He dropped his hand awkwardly. Cleared his throat.

 

“Shall we see how the Distribution Centres are coming along? That should put you in a better mood. I’m told the food allocation at least is going well, though there may be some teething troubles with the new housing assignments...”

 

 

 ***

 

 

When a week had passed and things were a bit more stable it was time. The hour arrived for dinner, and the guards failed to bring the Doctor food. Instead they escorted him somewhere he’d not seen yet—the Master had chosen a large, comfortable hotel in London as his base of operations, and the room the guards brought the Doctor to was clearly one of the luxury suites.

 

It was suspicious, how the guards never roughed him up when fetching him for the Master. Even if they were professionals, as the Master said, they still might have gripped him harshly. Left light bruises. But it was as if they’d been instructed not to. They handled him like a china doll. They were almost respectful.

 

Blinking in the hard sunset light from the long bank of windows running the length of the strange new room, the Doctor was left alone with a table set for two. He lifted the silver bell-shaped lid of the tray. Roast duck with a glaze, some vegetables. The Master entered the room and smiled at the Doctor’s cautious exploration, and the Doctor set the lid back down with a startled clang and an expression of smothered embarrassment.

 

“I see you’ve not lost your appetite down in the cells, my dear Doctor.” The Master made an expansive, pleasant gesture that indicated the table. “Won’t you sit down? I find I’m rather hungry myself.”

 

“No doubt a long day of tedious dictatorship has tired you,” The Doctor replied archly, not moving towards the offered seat. “Whose slave labor would I be exploiting if I ate this, then?”

 

“Oh Doctor, don’t be tiring,” The Master frowned, taking a seat himself and flipping out a napkin adroitly to cover his lap. “Naturally I don’t have a human cook. Do you think I want to be poisoned? I accept that it’ll take the people of Earth some time to understand that this has been a change for the better. A new world of opportunity has opened to them—they’ll see that eventually. Until they do I’ve no intention of employing them as domestics.”

 

“And so you’ve whipped us up a supper yourself?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “How delightfully domestic of you. I didn’t know you still dallied in the kitchen.”

 

“I’m afraid I’m rather too busy to roast you any chickens,” the Master twirled a fork between his thumb and forefinger. He seemed to be struggling with some tightly wound internal tension. “But I’ve obtained an excellent chef from off-world whose record of serving people in delicate political situations is impeccable. And I’m paying him considerably more than slave wages.”

 

Still the Doctor hesitated. The Master sighed and leaned back in his chair, dropping his fork with a clatter. “Honestly Doctor, you’ve not eaten properly in days. You send your trays back nearly full—the guards tell me you’ve touched nothing but what comes in individually wrapped packages. As if I’d try to drug you,” the Master scoffed, seeming almost offended by the suggestion. But then his tone softened. “You can’t survive on crackers, you know. Sit down before you fall down.”

 

Grudgingly, the Doctor pulled out his chair and settled in it, lifting the silver lid of the chaffing dish cautiously, like the pin of a grenade. He pulled the warm plate into the place before him and doled out a bit of onion gravy from the pitcher onto the meat.

 

It was Sunday, the Doctor realized with a start. He’d begun reckoning time in relation to the Master’s triumph, rather than human weekdays. But this was a proper Sunday roast. And it was  _good_ , he noted, shoveling the vegetables into his mouth gracelessly. He even devoured the mashed swede—and he  _hated_  mashed swede. The Master’s cook had certainly made a good start at learning something of human cuisine.

 

The Master ate with considerably less fervor, seemingly amused by how the Doctor cleaned his plate. “That’s better,” the Master praised, incredibly pleased with himself, as if he really had made the whole damn thing with his own hands.

 

The Master passed the Doctor a plate of puddings. Their hands slid across each other during the exchange, bringing the electric rush of physical contact with another Time Lord, the hot press of another consciousness against his own. The Master’s thoughts sparked across the back of the Doctor’s mind like a fact hovering at the edge of his recall, and he ached to open, to draw the Master in and soothe the itch, to experience that sweet, triumphant satisfaction of fully  _knowing_  again.

 

“Thank you,” The Doctor said tightly.

 

“My pleasure.” The Master’s lip quirked, his expression half-amused, half indefinable.

 

“This is certainly an improvement over my cell,” the Doctor noted to break the coiled silence. ‘Cell’ was a strong word for a single room in a luxury hotel, carefully stripped of anything useful, but the Doctor fiercely resented being confined—being stuck on earth in one time line was indignity enough.

 

“I’d very much like to see the UNIT prisoners.” The Doctor leaned forward with an elbow on the table to catch the Master with a direct gaze. It was, on occasion, possible to tell if he was lying by a certain involuntary tightening of his eyes, and the Doctor needed all the leverage he could get.

 

“What,” the Master scoffed, “As if I’m going to let you leave the hotel? You’d abscond from any escort I could provide you with in a quarter of an hour. I couldn’t be responsible for your safety, running about in London trying to undermine me. You might very well be shot simply by accident.”

 

“I  _meant_  that I wanted to know if they were alright, though your concern is  _touching_.”

 

“You’re unpleasantly sarcastic this evening. Not one of your more appealing moods. Your precious friends are well provided for. I saw that their own medic got adequate supplies with which to tend to them.” The Master poured himself more wine. “They’re being held in one of my detention centres. I’ve designed them in such a way that the whole structure comes practically pre-assembled. You’ll see for yourself, when we make inspections—from the ground breaking to the completion of an entire facility in the space of an hour. Truly remarkable engineering, if I do say so myself.” The Master smiled at the Doctor, self-satisfied.

 

From his pointed, put-on bored expression, the Doctor wasn’t willing to admit to an appreciation of the Master’s scientific prowess. Irritated, he directed the conversation back to the Doctor’s question. “Snugly installed in their own little military base—your associates must feel quite at home.”

 

The Doctor seemed to take his measure, then nodded guardedly. “You’re getting awfully comfortable with militarism yourself. Is this the new dining mess, then?” The Doctor mocked between bites of the pudding.

 

“Not quite.”

 

The Doctor chewed slower. “I could do with another blanket, down in my room, if you’ve one to spare. I imagine your resources are rather ample at the moment. Your people took out everything but one sheet. They seemed to think I would do myself an injury with the duvet.” The Doctor hadn’t thought of strangling himself until he’d thought to wonder why all the linens were gone. The suggestion had chilled him. It made the desperation of his situation all the more apparent to him.

 

“I’m sorry to hear you were cold.” The Doctor resented the Master’s sarcastic politeness, but the Master pressed on, tone infuriatingly fair and accommodating. “You might’ve asked for whatever you needed. Within reason, it would have been granted to you.”

 

“So you’ll give me a quilt, then, without fear of me making some desperate attempt?”

 

“That won’t be necessary.” The Master lowered his fork to the tablecloth very deliberately. Straightened the plate and the utensils absently, so that the lines between them were exactly correct. Took up his wine glass and sipped, not meeting the Doctor’s eyes.

 

“How do you mean?” The Doctor asked, picking up on the Master’s too-deliberate movements, the tightness in his muscles. Jumpy as a bridegroom before his wedding night. The Doctor had seldom seen him more tightly strung.

 

“You won’t be returning to that room this evening.”

 

“This evening?” The Doctor asked.

 

“No.” The Master took another drink. He looked up and found the Doctor’s eyes. “You won’t.”

 

Or any other evening, the Doctor realized. “Oh.” He murmured.

 

The Master stood up and walked over toward the Doctor. His steps were unnaturally even. He pushed the Doctor’s empty plate under the cover, laid a hand on the bared table and drummed his fingers once, lightly.

 

“I don’t think I have to tell you—” he began, but cut himself off. Paused. “Well. You understand me.”

 

“Too sordid to say explicitly, is it?” The Doctor’s tone was flat.

 

“Have it your way, then.” The Master’s hand traced the line of his face. “Don’t bite.” Lingered under his chin. “Don’t resist. Explicit enough for your taste?”

 

“Or?” The Doctor held. “Or you’ll  _what_ , exactly?”

 

“Must you?” The Master snapped, dropping his hand.

 

“If I’m to prostitute myself I’d like to know the terms.”

 

“That’s not—”

 

“That’s  _exactly_  what this is.”

 

“I won’t kill anyone.” The Master leaned against the table, facing him, arms crossed over his chest. That gesture had never looked so defensive to the Doctor before. “That’s not the alternative. But then you can do quite a lot to a person before they expire.”

 

“Well then, dear,  _darling_ , Master—” the Doctor oozed sarcasm.

 

“Shut up.” The Master hissed, leaning forward and pinning the Doctor in the cage of the chair with his hands on the arm rests, “If you’re going to do that, just shut  _up_.”

 

“Is that a command, Master?” Again the Doctor’s tone neutered the word.

 

“Everything I say to you now is a command,” the Master growled, “and you’d do well to get used to that.” He swiftly destroyed the aching space between them, shoving his tongue into the Doctor’s wet mouth. He imagined it welcoming. It had been centuries since they’d kissed. It felt exquisite. He thought he might have moaned.

 

With a hand on the back of the Doctor’s neck, he crushed them together, sucking at his lips, tonguing the roof of his mouth, running his free hand through the Doctor’s soft curls.

 

The Doctor was stock-still. He hadn’t given the Master so much as a stilted breath. He hadn’t moved his lips in the kiss, not at all. After a moment the Master drew back and blinked at the Doctor. The Master’s expression nearly quirked into a bewildered smile, looking almost stupidly confused for an instant, his face vulnerable.

 

Determined, he grabbed the Doctor’s hand, dragging him up out of the chair and into the bedroom. The Doctor couldn’t see his face, which was just as well. His bright grin was inappropriate to the situation, and it only would have made the Doctor nervous. But he couldn’t help it. He wanted to laugh. Finally,  _finally_.

 

The Master turned and kissed him again, his hands working off the Doctor’s jacket. Unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it out of his pants proved a little difficult. The Doctor’s belt barred the way, and pulling it off without his help would be awkward.

 

“Aren’t you going to help me?” He broke off and asked the Doctor. Mouth shut, the Doctor took a step back. He paid attention not to the Master but to what he was doing—unbuttoning a cuff. Unbuckling and setting aside his belt. Removing his pants. Going so far as to fold them. He looked only at each article of clothing as he took it off. He might as well have been alone in the room.

 

The Master watched, off-put by the slow, cold movement. Taking advantage of the Doctor’s plodding, he shucked off his own jacket. The Doctor finished before him.

 

“You’re still not helping me,” he teased, watching the Doctor as he worked, hurrying along.

 

“Undress yourself!” The Doctor snapped.

 

The Master hadn’t expected the whip-snap of the tone. He continued silently, and then walked to the bed.

 

“Come here.” He patted the space beside him. The Doctor obliged and sat down nearly a foot away, staring ahead at the wall. Exasperated, the Master pushed him down on the bed. “Scoot up,” he insisted, and the Doctor did. Pleased, the Master straddled him, bending to pepper his face with kisses, running his hands down the Doctor’s chest, delighted.

 

He sucked at the Doctor’s neck, seeking a spot he knew would elicit a response. Nothing. Surprised, he braced his arms on either side of the Doctor’s face, staring down at him in the semi-dark room. “Different reactions in this body, then?” He tried, smoothing his face to something that encouraged confidence.

 

“I wouldn’t know.” The Doctor said, staring somewhere around the vicinity of the Master’s chin.

 

“Oh come now,” the Master encouraged, “You’ve some idea. You must! Tell me. Or better yet, show me.”

 

The Doctor didn’t do either. The Master sighed. “ _Fine_ , I can see I shall have to go exploring,” the Master’s wasn’t bothered. He was finally where he wanted to be, and that made him patient, put him in too good of a mood to get easily annoyed. “I’m sure I can find  _something_. Though you’re being singularly unhelpful tonight.”

 

“I wonder why.”

 

The Master snapped his eyes closed with a wave of anger. When he opened them again, he’d calmed himself.

 

“If you haven’t anything useful to say, then kindly keep silent. My patience isn’t infinite.”

 

The Doctor didn’t say a word. The Master slid a hand down and found the Doctor unstirred. A bit insulting (he was certainly more than ready himself), but he wasn’t going to quibble over it. A few strokes changed that, and the Master was much more confident, smirking as he palmed the hot, solid length.

 

“There we are,” he whispered, bending to kiss the Doctor again, swiping his tongue over the closed lips. “Open up,” he demanded, and the Doctor did. He tried to prod the Doctor’s tongue into action with his own. That wasn’t terribly successful. He put his unoccupied fingers to the Doctor’s temple, pushing in and singeing his mental fingers on the Doctor’s impenetrable resistance.

 

“Let me in,” he demanded.

 

“No.”

 

“Oh _really_ , Doctor—”

 

“No.” The Doctor looked a little afraid. “I’m not having you in there. God knows what you’ll do to me.”

 

“You know what I’ll do!” The Master insisted. Was the Doctor really going to play the ingénue? All the tension of the past months—he hadn’t been imagining that, not with their history. What the hell did the Doctor think he was bothering with Earth for? This couldn’t come as any kind of surprise to him.

 

So he wasn’t happy with how he found himself in bed. That was understandable. The Master had expected to win that particular war only slowly. But they’d always worked well here, no matter what their arguments in the unforgiving light of day. It was what happened outside bedrooms that had tripped them up.

 

“I’ll make you feel wonderful.” The Master tried, gently rubbing the heel of his hand on the Doctor’s temple. “You’ve always loved this.”

 

“I don’t want to ‘feel wonderful.’ And I’m not letting you in.”

 

“Is it what they’ve done?” The Master asked, not unkindly, referring to the High Council’s violation of the Doctor’s mind. The Doctor winced and said nothing. “Not tonight, then.” The Master let his hand drop down to the Doctor’s hip. “We’ll try it when you want it—whenever you’re ready. When you realize you can trust me.” Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way, the Master decided, altering his course slightly.

 

“We’ll have to confine ourselves to more physical pleasures,” the Master said with a smile. “Not that that’s any hardship. Turn over.” The Master left and came back with a tube of something cold that made the Doctor shiver when it touched his skin.

 

“Sorry,” the Master muttered, tone genuine, “I’d forgotten you had to warm it in your hands a bit first. It’s been some time since—” He broke off with an exasperated sigh at the Doctor’s failure to move without being asked. “Oh for—” He positioned the Doctor’s hips correctly, sliding him up on his hands and knees. The Doctor let his limbs be guided, but didn’t help at all. “I didn’t know we were going to be playing Simon Says,” the Master mocked his rag-doll of a partner, “You could show some basic initiative.”

 

“Could I?  _Lovely_.” The Doctor sounded less than enthusiastic.

 

“ _Fine_. As you like.” The Master slid a finger in, feeling the Doctor tremble slightly at the intrusion. At least something of him was honest, and eager. The Doctor caught his hips before they could slam back, but the Master saw the muscles jerk with the repressed impulse, and felt an upwelling of glee. Yes. Oh  _yes_. And another finger—the shudder that produced was gorgeous.

 

“Ready?” He asked after a minute, hoping the Doctor was, because he could hardly wait to be in him.

 

“Would you care if I weren’t?” The Doctor didn’t seem interested in an answer. Swallowing, the Master declined to dignify that with a response, pushing himself in slowly.

 

So achingly tight. Such a wonderful clutch, like the muscles themselves wanted this. As he pushed in the resistance seemed playful, a challenge, and as he pulled out the Doctor seemed to clutch at him, desperate that he not leave. He reached down and found the Doctor hard. Good. The Doctor couldn’t try and pretend now that this didn’t affect him, that he didn’t want this.

 

Building a rhythm was like walking a long, lovely path back to where they’d begun. A tiny whimper, quickly suppressed, escaped the Doctor when the Master moved inside him just right. And another slipped past his lips. And another tumbled out of his mouth. Each a little louder, less successfully smothered. He milked the Doctor’s cock with a hand, balancing his weight on his own knees and on the Doctor. The Doctor tried to say perfectly still, but his strong arms trembled with something that wasn’t strain. There, at last, the Doctor gave a long, drawn cry.

 

Oh he’d  _known_  he could win the Doctor back. Win his body, and his mind, and his love, and his co-operation. Words lied, but the body was true. It didn’t even try to claim it didn’t want this. The Doctor’s skin was wet with sweat and clung to his. The Doctor’s muscles had stopped tensing uncomfortably where the Master laid his hands. The Doctor’s cock had stopped lying limp and unfeeling, as if uncaring that the Master was looking at him, touching him. The Doctor’s body acknowledged him properly now. Rejoiced in his possession.

 

When he whispered, “Move with me” the Doctor’s hips followed his, working in counterpoint. Where he ran his fingers over the Doctor’s arms his touch left goose bumps, and elicited soft, hushed noise. He pulled back and licked a broad, flat line from the Doctor’s coccyx to his neck and fastened on the spot he’d tried earlier, this time attacking it with tongue and teeth. The Doctor mewled uncontrollably, unable to suppress it as he had earlier. The Master realized that, until he’d heard that sound, what he’d felt upon conquering Earth was only the echo of victory. The substance of it was in that cry.

 

He pulled back and the Doctor came with him, as if drawn along in exquisite concert. The Doctor pushed forward and the Master toppled deeper into him. The Doctor moaned as the Master slid down, burying himself to the root. The Master knew the sound so well he bucked his hips involuntarily, hearing it. The action brought the sound back again, and that was serendipity.

 

He felt glorious like this. Empowered, desired, and he had to have him, had to have more of him, needed him so much. He wasn’t ashamed of that here. He couldn’t be, not now, in the face of how felt to have the Doctor with him, like this.

 

Home was the Doctor. And it was warm. And it was perfect. And it was theirs, just theirs. “Doctor,” he gasped out, so fucking  _close_ , lips trembling as they framed the word “Oh god—”

 

And the Doctor was saying something. The Master wanted to hear him, because he always did. Hope soared in his breast, and he was so deliciously near to toppling over the edge, and they were never so blessedly close as when they could come together.

 

“Doctor?” He asked, unable to keep it from slipping down into a moan, “Oh Doctor,  _Doctor_ —”

 

“I  _said_  you’re pathetic.” The Doctor sneered, his tone unfathomably cold. He said it again for good measure, smoothing it over his tongue. “Did you manage to hear me this time? You’re _pathetic_.”

 

It took an instant for the Master to process the words. It took another to believe he’d actually heard them. Several more passed before the Master could think past the rage that made his stomach tighten and curl like something detached from his will, some foreign thing inside him that  _hated_  him. He was a statue, frozen, though he didn’t remember having stopped moving. He lifted his hands from the Doctor’s skin, not feeling its texture. They were shaking slightly.

 

“You—” he whispered. He swallowed. He was small now, and he was helpless, because he couldn’t, couldn’t even. And he was so  _angry_. But it was useless, uncomprehending rage. “You _can’t_ —” he tried again, louder, but his voice was unsteady.

 

He could taste the Doctor in his mouth, and feel the residual warmth of the Doctor’s skin in his hands, and he could  _smell_  him, and he was breathing him in dark lungfuls, taking the Doctor’s atoms into his own body, and he was  _in_  him, and the Doctor wasn’t even there. How could he have thought they were each other’s, if it wasn’t true? It shouldn’t be possible, for him to think that if it weren’t true. It wasn’t  _fair_.

 

But if it were, how could the Doctor have said that,  _how_  could the Doctor have done that, how could the Doctor not have wanted him, needed him, just as much as he—as much as—

 

He pulled out, ignoring his persistent, stupid hardness. He didn’t want it anymore. He couldn’t look at the Doctor. He groped for a dressing gown from the back of door out of habit and left.

 

*** 

 

The door clicked shut. Slowly, the Doctor unbent from his tense pose, slumping down into the bed. The Master’s bed—the Doctor didn’t really know where else he intended to sleep. If he intended to sleep. The Doctor wished he could shower, but he was so tired that seeking the bathroom out seemed too much to ask of his body. And anyway, it was sure to be somewhere outside the door. He wasn’t going to venture forth and run the risk of confronting the Master again.

 

It didn’t feel like winning, but people were dead, and he couldn’t just. Couldn’t just. The Doctor was glad he’d been looking down so he didn’t have to see the Master’s face. He breathed into the dark and inhaled the sent of the Master in the sheets. He crawled up and found it pooled in the pillowcases. He pushed his face into the soft fabric and wanted to cry, but breathed until he was calmer. He told himself he didn’t want to come until his erection slowly subsided. He told himself the bed was warm and soft, and that he needed to sleep, because he hadn’t in days, not properly, anyway, until his body listened and his hearts slowed. He warned himself not to dream, because he couldn’t bear that. And he didn’t.


	2. Part II

Title: The Final Game  
Author: [](http://x-los.livejournal.com/profile)[ **x_los**](http://x-los.livejournal.com/)    
Rating: NC-17  
Pairing: Three/Delgado!Master  
Chapter: Part II of III  
Summary: In which the Master wins, and the Doctor's attempts to talk his way out of it prove less than successful. Darkfic with consent issues.   
Beta: [](http://deborah-judge.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://deborah-judge.livejournal.com/) **deborah_judge**  , who made me change a major plot element and rewrite two and a half scenes, and was  _totally_  right.   
A/N: Ridiculous 'What kind of tree' game courtesy of  _Mark of the Rani_ , and high school students with crushes everywhere.

 

PART II

 

 

 

He dreamed of the Doctor, sleeping with him in the bed. Of his voice at twelve, clear and burbling. The sound of him at fourteen, riddled with change. That same tenor turned deep and certain in their fourth decade, mellow and complex in their fifteenth.

 

He dreamed of Theta’s voice cracking, but instead of a man’s voice slinking through the child’s Theta’s voice cracked and was simply broken. Where there should be new, deep tones there were whole words lost to silence, and Theta was so embarrassed he cried. Koschei wrapped his arms around him, because he was young again and he could. But the crying didn’t stop. It just continued on soundlessly, like a human film on mute.

 

In their close proximity came sweeter dreams of when he still had the right to append the Gallifreyan modifier for ‘mine’ to the Doctor’s name. That was still how he thought of the Doctor, with the possessive prefix for ‘of me.’ But he knew better than to say the name like _that_  aloud. The Doctor hadn’t given that privilege back to him yet. But he would, in time.

 

The Doctor avoided saying ‘Master’ to his face, though the Master had heard him speak it to his friends. He was hiding in English, where they had no history—a barren language. A fake, or at the least insufficient one, in which they hadn’t even a linguistically constructed relationship.

 

The last time they spoke properly, the Doctor had used his name. The conversation had unraveled the work of years, decoupled them from each other as if they’d never been united at all. How could you propose to go from being tied so completely that every pain and joy was shared, that you were one cohesive whole, to not even having each other in your lives? It seemed an artificial, impossible transformation to the Master.

 

But in his dream of the last time they addressed each other by their right names, the Doctor’s voice was all wrong, nothing like it had been. In the Master’s dream the Doctor became progressively calmer, running through the words he’d said then as if reading off an uninspiring script, until he was speaking in a flat monotone. The Master’s pitch remained feverish as it had been in life. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you’d react like this!”

 

The Doctor seemed terribly bored. The Master almost missed the hitched sobs that had spaced his words the first time around. “What are you saying? It shouldn’t have been about  _my reaction_. People are dead.” The Doctor idly played with a cuff—he was older, the Master realized, he looked as he did now. The Master examined his own hand and found he was also in the wrong body to be having this conversation. “How could you possibly not have known, known in  _yourself_ that it was _wrong?”_

 

As if drawn to reenact the scene until it met some different end, the Master moved to gather Theta in his arms even as he’d tried then.

 

“Don’t touch me, god, your hands, they’re—”

 

“Don’t be stupid,” the Master hissed, “I didn’t do it with my hands. They’re fine, they’re clean. Come here. Let me hold you. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I won’t ever do it again.” If he could touch the Doctor he could explain why what he’d done was necessary. The Doctor would calm down. Would agree with him. Would apologize for making such a terrible fuss and worrying the Master unnecessarily with all this absolute nonsense about leaving.

 

“No,” the Doctor promised, “You won’t. Or at the very least I won’t be here to see you do it.”

 

“What does that even mean?” The Master asked, desperate as he had been, as if he were expecting a different answer.

 

“That I can’t stand to speak to you and don’t want to be in the position to do so ever again.”

 

“But,” stupidly bewildered as he had been, “you love me! You  _can’t_  do—”

 

“Don’t you see I can’t be with you now and retain anything of me?” Where the Doctor had swallowed hard there was just a blank, pleasant space. “Oh,  _Master_. You’ve ruined _everything_.” And in this version of the day the Doctor wore a polite smile. As if he was vaguely sorry about the whole business, but it simply couldn’t be helped.

 

*** 

  

“Good morning, Doctor.” The Doctor blinked his eyes open. The Master was standing a few feet away, fully dressed.

 

Cautiously, the Doctor opened his mouth to respond, not really sure himself of what precisely he was going to say. No sound. He tried again. Nothing. Beginning to panic, he sat up, hand to his throat, to tell the Master something was wrong before realizing oh, how  _stupid_  he was, of course the Master knew something wrong, because he’d done this.

 

“How’re you feeling?” The Master’s glee was poorly hidden behind a glittering smirk. “Well, I hope?”

 

The Doctor opened his mouth to shout at the Master involuntarily before snapping it closed with a murderous expression. The Master chuckled.

 

The Doctor clambered out of bed and grabbed the Master’s arm, eyes frantic.

 

“What did I do?” The Master guessed. “It’s an interesting question. Shall I give you a while to ponder it? I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. Besides, they’ve laid on breakfast.” He patted the Doctor on the cheek, expression mocking. “Do hurry along, we’ve a busy day ahead of us.”

 

 ***

 

“Would you like to know why you find yourself incapable of speech? Aside from your stunt last night, I mean.” The Master cut his poached egg with a knife and fork into precise, evenly sized bites. He looked up at the Doctor. “Well?”

 

The Doctor rolled his eyes and mouthed ‘yes’ accompanying it with a nod.

 

“I feel as if something could have been appended to that. Two things, actually. Oh don’t play dull. You know what I want.” The Master appeared to thoughtfully consider his toast before looking up at the Doctor expectantly.

 

The Doctor mouthed ‘Yes, please, Master.’

 

“Good. You’re going to let me into your mind. Not to break it—I can’t imagine why you seem to have come to that ridiculous conclusion,” he snapped when the Doctor opened his mouth, “and don’t try to interrupt me, it looks ridiculous when you haven’t any voice to do it with. Merely to establish my presence there. To keep an eye on you, if you will.”

 

The Master went into the explicit, relevant psychic details of the fate that awaited the Doctor. The Doctor didn’t catch many of the specifics of the telepathic process, though he noticed the Master seemed to want him to feel well informed.

 

The Master was standing in from of him, having grasped why the Doctor was suddenly absorbed in glaring heatedly at his cup of Earl Grey.

 

“It won’t be anything like what they did to you. You know it won’t,” he gently stroked the Doctor’s face with his knuckles, and the Doctor, too absorbed by fear of something entirely different, didn’t shirk from the contact. The Master, encouraged, turned the Doctor’s face toward his. He let his touch comfort the Doctor, like a skittish animal wants calmed, and he enjoyed the feel of the Doctor’s skin under his fingertips in the same motion.

 

The Doctor seemed to come around suddenly. He gave the Master an explicit glare that asked how exactly letting the Master into his mind to—what had he said? ‘Keep an eye on things?’— _wouldn’t_  be at all akin to being telepathically manipulated by the High Council. Certainly their motives differed, and the Master wasn’t likely to inflict the Council’s wanton damage. But having the Master in his mind, doing whatever he would whenever he liked was a threatening prospect, its offered pleasures threaded through with a horrifying vulnerability and dependence. He’d always valued his autonomy, and now that so much of it had been stripped from him he didn’t surrender its remnants lightly.

 

The Master dropped his hand. “It’s practically non-invasive. I’ll just have  _access._  I’ll be able to read you, to tell if you’re about to do anything foolish to yourself or to me.”

 

_To read me and then to stop me. I’d be offering my mind to a murderer, a man who absolutely can’t be trusted._ The Doctor’s eyes narrowed eloquently _._   _So much for ‘waiting until I want you there,’ then._

 

“How terribly arrogant that look is. I suppose you’re fretting about having your will curtailed? Well, Doctor, sometimes you want stopping,” the Master’s voice was firm.

 

_And if I say no?_  The Doctor wondered. His nostrils flared with anger. The Doctor wondered if the Master was willing to kill to get him to capitulate. If so this was rather a foregone contest.

 

“I’m not holding any external leverage over you,” the Master got the jist, “I haven’t any need to. You do so enjoy your own soliloquies, and you can’t  _stand_  not to have the last word. Silence will wear you down more effectively than anything else could. The moment you let me in your mind, we can communicate  _properly_. We’ll share thought again, as we should. And I’ll return your voice to you so you can chat with all and sundry at your whim. All you have to do is allow me back in.”

 

The Doctor was shocked at the almost magic-trick of the Master’s ability to parse him. But why wasn’t the Master just threatening to kill? Come to think of it, why hadn’t he tried that last night? With wondering eyes, he stared at the Master.

 

“I’m not going to kill anyone I don’t need to,” the Master offered, “That’d be a poor start to my benevolent reign over these primitives. And,” the Master looked into the Doctor’s eyes, tone intense, “I learned some time ago that you’re rather down on my dispatching lives for your benefit.” The Master’s expression relaxed into a wry, mocking grin. “ _Especially_  when I do it for your benefit, it seems. You know, you _really_ could learn to accept a compliment graciously.” The Master clucked disparagingly.

 

He rubbed the Doctor’s chin with his thumb. He couldn’t seem to stop touching him. But there was no reason not to indulge himself, not anymore. Not even the Doctor himself would impede him. He sighed ruefully, because he shouldn’t have needed to force this.

 

“One day you’re going to forgive me. Oh, you no doubt find the idea impossible now, but given time you’ll be reconciled, and you’ll forgive me all of this. And then you’re going to thank me for being willing to go to such lengths. For being strong enough to do for us what you wouldn’t. I look forward to that too much to let some primitives killed in your courting impede us, just because you couldn’t forgive yourself for deaths in pursuit of something so personal.”

 

He kissed the Doctor on the forehead, willfully ignoring the Doctor’s expression, which seemed two parts disgusted and one part disappointed in him. “You should get properly dressed. We’ve a lot of work to do.”

 

 ***

 

 

For some days his need for the Doctor warred with the shame he attached to their last encounter in his mind. No amount of telling himself that the Doctor was simply being foolish as usual, and that he, the Master, was stronger than this, and should just make the decision for both of them, could quite eradicate his disquiet. Nowhere in his copious planning was a response to a Doctor who wasn’t at his core still  _his_. That evening had threatened his foundations.

 

The night after it happened, he came to bed some hours later than the other Time Lord, hoping the Doctor would already be asleep. No such luck. The Doctor was staring at the ceiling, limbs pressed tight against his body. He seemed to be pretending their bed was a single, and that he was blind and deaf to the Master’s entrance in addition to being mute.

 

The Master turned away from him and slumped down on his side of the bed (the left, as always—well, at least they’d kept to _that_ , so  _something_  was solid between them). He stared at the wall. He could hear the Doctor breathing, could hear his respiration slow as the Doctor succumbed to sleep. He could hear the Doctor’s hearts beating, and feel his warmth, just impossible inches away. It brought him a species of comfort he’d long thought extinct. He knew the Doctor’s rhythms, and they twined into his own like a lullaby.

 

The next night the sounds and the nearness made him hard and frustrated. He spent the day snapping at the Doctor, getting even more annoyed with him for not being able to properly banter back. He slept with his fingers buried in the pillow clutched against his chest, fisted in the fabric like he wanted to rip it apart.

 

*** 

 

Most days he took the Doctor with him. Trailing the Master like a shadow, silent and brooding, the Doctor surveyed the Master’s new dominion. The worst bit of it was that the Master was trying.

 

On their way to one of the Master’s endless improvement projects they’d driven by the UNIT encampment. The detour had certainly been by the Master’s design, a way of showing the Doctor that they were still alive, as he had said they were. The bulletproof windows had been down. The Master must have had security, at least in London, very well managed indeed, to be so bold.

 

The Doctor had caught a glimpse of Benton in a sling talking to Jo in the yard. They’d looked well, if not happy. Jo had spotted their car and run the length of the fence to the end. She’d laced her fingers through the metal and called to the Doctor. No doubt she wondered why he wouldn’t respond to her.

 

“Like a dog on a choke chain,” the Master seemed amused at Jo’s rush to the fence. “She’s certainly a loyal pet, if little else.” The Doctor turned back to him with a seething look, and the Master allowed himself a small smile. Good. He had the Doctor’s full attention again.

 

The new schools, populated by nervous children in clean uniforms of good material, actually looked to be universally better appointed than they were before the invasion. Everything looked like a public school. Old, lovely manors with pleasant lawns co-opted for the use of inner-city students who’d never so much as seen a properly funded institution before this. They sat at banks of computers a generation before such machines would have appeared in human schools. A cursory glance told the Doctor these were infinitely superior to the Earth’s early models as well.

 

The Master had brought in off-world experts to manage several of his initiatives until the humans could produce people of comparable caliber and tend to the work themselves. He explained as much to the Doctor. The Doctor wanted to ask the bustling aliens, who seemed so genuinely committed to the welfare of their charges, how they could participate in this obviously politically illegitimate system, no matter what good they thought they were doing for the children specifically. But he’d lost the faculty to question them.

 

What about children whose families didn’t want to send them to boarding school, he wanted to know. What about the world outside England? During the car ride back to the hotel his desperation to do what he always did, to pick apart a situation until the mass unraveled and yielded the truth at its core, gave him an idea. He grabbed the Master’s hand, and the Master, amused, let him. The Doctor drew his question on the Master’s palm in the circles of their language, running the nouns in small whorls across the mound at the base of the Master’s thumb, threading the verbs through the lines of his skin like reverse palmistry.

 

_You can’t possibly have established this over the entirety of the planet,_ the Doctor finished spelling, ending with a percussive tap at the heel of the Master’s hand.

 

“Of course I couldn’t possibly have,” the Master conceded, “Not yet at any rate. No, it’s not like this in regions where there’s little infrastructure to start with. But I’m confident that by the end of the decade we’ll see a complete application of the new system.”

 

_So you intend to force them all into your institutions, regardless of their right to make choices about their own children’s future? You’re not going to endear them to you by dispensing with their perogative to raise their young as they like!_  The Doctor got the final, tricky consonant across by raking his fingertips down the Master’s palm, and the Master frowned for an instant before he understood.

 

“Does  _nothing_  satisfy you?” The Master chuckled, and there was something patient in the sound. He mock-sighed. “It’s never good enough, is it? Now you’re against universal education.”

 

The Doctor grew more excited and leaned over the Master, grabbing both his hands and letting the words pour out.  _No one asked you for this_ , swirled across the Master’s palm, darting up to his knuckles for a radial vowel, skirting over to his other hand for a relative clause,  _No one made you World Minister of Education. This is coercive. It’s authoritarian. How can you not understand that makes it wrong, no matter what your intentions or resources are?_

 

“Oh  _come_  now Doctor,” the Master scoffed, curling his fingers around the Doctor’s for emphasis, “They’ve access to resources they’d never have known existed without me. Don’t children need the guidance of adults? This precious planet of yours engages in constant, pointless war. Its citizens routinely starve, die in droves from the simplest diseases. We could end that. Doesn’t it follow that we should? Don’t you, with your bleeding hearts, feel a compulsion to aid them? Isn’t that your usual mode?”

 

The Doctor uncurled the Master’s fingers to smooth out a blank canvas. _They’re not children Master, and you’re not their god._

 

“Ah. So you’d prefer inaction then?” The Master sneered. “Let them wallow in muck and squalor until they can elevate  _themselves_  from it. How terribly non-interventionist of you. Perhaps the Council did manage to hammer a lesson home after all?”

 

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed at that, and he held the Master’s gaze, not looking down at their hands as he furiously sketched out a reply.  _A species develops at its own rate, along its own path. You can’t determine their course for them. And that aside, if you wanted simply to offer them advancement you’d have no need rule the planet._

 

“Is there a better way to insure they won’t dicker themselves to exhaustion and then blow up the technology because it confused them?” The Master laughed. “I’m sure you recall the Axonite farrago. I thought they were liable to simply start flinging the samples at each other from the treetops.”

 

The Doctor had to grin boyishly at him at that. Their faces, he suddenly realized, were close in the cabin of the car. The Master’s dark eyes were locked with his. When had he come to lean into the Master? When had they brought their lips so near? He didn’t even remember having moved. The Doctor stiffened and his expression closed into a sneer. He threw down the Master’s hands and sullenly scooted to the other end of the seat, pointedly looking out the window.

 

The Master chuckled lightly and passed one of those treacherously communicative hands through the Doctor’s hair. “If there’s anything else you’d like to know, all you need do is ask me.”

 

The Doctor snorted derisively at that.

 

 ***

 

The next Sunday morning the Master woke up languid and slow and reached over to touch the Doctor before he quite understood why his ability to do so was so especially notable. The Doctor nuzzled into his touch before coming to a similar realization himself. They both stilled, suddenly and awkwardly.

 

Slowly, and in complete silence, the Master toyed with the buttons of the Doctor’s silk pajama top, seeming to tease them open nearly incidentally. He brushed the fabric aside, and he tentatively ghosted a hand down the length of the Doctor’s exposed chest, sleepily marveling at the way the surprising muscular definition looked in the dappled sunlight coming through the curtains.

 

The Doctor tilted his head into the Master’s cautious kiss and then took possession of it. He poured all the agency he’d lacked in the past week into the contact, rolling over the Master until he was straddling him. He pushed a hand under the waistband of the Master’s pants and stroking the stiffness left there from sleep with all the savagery he was capable of in his drowsy, just-woken state.

 

The kiss continued, long and sloppy, drowsy and warm as the Master found the Doctor’s own cock. The Doctor’s free hand alternated between fisting in the bed sheet and clutching at the Master’s shoulder as the other man moved in infinitely patient rhythm. The Doctor broke off from kissing him when he came, burying his face in the Master’s neck and shaking a very little. The Doctor didn’t remove his other hand from the Master even when he came himself, and the Master spilled himself in the Doctor’s grip as it trembled and clenched in the Doctor’s own throes.

 

They didn’t speak all morning. They took their time. Nothing penetrative, nothing where they couldn’t see each other’s faces. Recovering, they kissed, sliding against each other. Their sticky fingers at first just traced patterns, then they were clenching at each other’s arms, until the Master flipped them over and the Doctor grinned up at him. He arched an eyebrow, a question and a challenge, and got a breathless chuckle from the Master in response.

 

The Master reached down and found the Doctor ready for his attention. Their mouths were close. He could taste the Doctor’s shivering breaths as he played with him. The Doctor, eyes wide, threw an arm across the back of the Master’s neck, pulling at him. The gesture was desperate, almost wanton. The Master smiled beatifically. This was what he’d wanted.

 

It was oddly like being children together again, experimenting in their dorm room, skipping classes to learn how to pleasure each other, making each other come for the first time. You forgot, he supposed, as you grew older, how delicious those touches could be. He’d not remembered until now that they could kiss for hours when they were boys and never tire of it. It had slipped his mind, how Theta’s fingers flitting across his ribs used to almost make him lose control. The Master reveled in the chance to learn the Doctor’s body all over again, to explore it like it was a new country he was claiming for himself. He mourned the loss of some of the Doctor’s old sensitive spots. He discovered all the new ones with gleeful fascination.

 

He licked behind the Doctor’s ear and slowly, slowly traced the shell of it with his tongue. The Doctor, who’d never cared for that much before, slammed an open palm on his back. His fingers spasamed once, abruptly, before the whole hand curled into a tight fist resting on the Master’s shoulder. The Doctor dug in with his knuckles when the Master lightly bit the lobe. The Doctor’s nails clenched his ass helplessly in a sort of flailing encouragement. The Master hissed and shuddered under the grip, liking it almost too much.

 

He returned to the reorganization of Earth the next day with a sense of unassailable good will towards his subjects, dragging the Doctor around with a bright, manic excitement. The Master was proud of his work, of the Doctor, of himself. None of the Doctor’s sour looks could shake his conviction that now, at last, they were headed in the proper direction.

 

 

*** 

 

 

 

The Master leaned back from his calculations, satisfied. He smiled down at the neat circle below him, which worked its way to a complete formulation of his thoughts with the elegant certainty and simplicity of the best geometric proofs.

 

“Come here,” he called the Doctor over. When he didn’t hear the shuffling noises of the Doctor coming, he looked over his shoulder. The Doctor, splayed out on the velvet chaise lounge with a novel, was peering over the back of it at him with a raised eyebrow, seeming to ask why he was supposed to be responding to his Master’s call like a pet.

 

“I believe I’ve already clarified my position on things I ask of you, orders, and the surest way to go about the prevention of cruelty to humans,” the Master said with dry politeness, looking over the red leather back of his chair at the Doctor, quirking his own eyebrow back in challenge. “Come here, please.”

 

The Doctor, with an annoyed look, dropped a bookmark between the pages of  _The Adventure of the Empty House_ with pointed insouciance and rose with slow, stately grace. He walked over to the Master and propped a hand on his hip as if to indicate  _Yes?_  before dropping his eyes to the Master’s calculations and scanning them almost involuntarily. He sucked a cheek in and nodded, impressed despite himself, drawing his finger to a particularly good point and tracing the ink. He looked at the Master questioningly.

 

“The engine design for a hydrogen power plant. It should stabilize the reaction enough to contain it, for a few centuries at least.” The Doctor frowned at this, as if suddenly aware of something.

 

“What?” The Master asked. The Doctor grabbed the pen from his hand and in the margins traced a complicated little addition that would purify all the water that came through the plant, spitting it out clean enough to be potable, regardless of its entry toxin level.

 

“Oh  _naturally,_  broadening the functionality. Brilliant,” the Master praised. Then, unable to resist pointing it out, he smirked. “How very obliging of you, Doctor.”

 

The Doctor defensively folded his arms over his chest and jerked his head in the direction of the hotel’s entrance to suggest that whatever regime his innovation was coupled to, the technology was in the service of the people out there. If the plant was going to be built, it might as well provide humans with a long-term solution to an environmental problem.

 

It was rarely terribly difficult for the Master to deduce the Doctor’s meaning. Especially considering that they’d carried on a conversation about the long term effects of what the Doctor had termed the Master’s ‘ad hoc, inorganic, top-down meddling’ the night before. They’d spent a few hours reading in the parlor and covertly passing a note back and forth. They’d pretended to not to hear each other furiously writing responses, covertly grinning behind their books.

 

They’d  _meant_  the argument. Yet it had been too much like they were schoolboys again not to be funny. They’d never gotten caught discreetly slipping each other bits of the day-longepistolary conversations that had kept them entertained through classes. Not until twelfth forum, anyway. They’d been having a fierce debate about something completely ridiculous—they disagreed now over whether it had been over the order of their constantly growing queue of places to go when they obtained a TARDIS or ‘What kind of tree would you be?’

 

Theta had made the note into a paper airplane and fired it the short distance to Koschei’s head to make his point felt. Theta’s amateur ballistics had prompted Koschei to make an indignant noise, which had caught Professor Flavia’s attention and landed them both having to give mind-numbingly boring putative tutoring for a week to stragglers in the lower forms. After that they’d been seated further apart, and had to become adept interpreters of each other’s body language. Being around the Doctor so constantly now, he was reacquiring it easily.

 

“Quite right,” the Master smiled, understanding the Doctor entirely just from the direction of the jerk of his head and the particular set of his jaw. “Now kneel.”

 

The Doctor looked more taken aback than defiant.

 

“While you were immersed in your novel, I’ve been redefining hydrogen technology for Earth—using only her astoundingly limited resources, I should point out—all day long. And having _accomplished_  something, I find myself in need of relaxation,” the Master explained, stimulated as ever by the Doctor’s ability to grasp and share his thought so completely, and not a little amused by the Doctor’s expression. “Ergo…” he gracefully prodded the desk with his leg, turning the chair to face the Doctor, and gestured at the carpeted floor.

 

Bracing his hands on the arms of the chair, the Doctor slid down, leaning over him, staying bare inches away from the Master until he sat pooled at his feet. He was trying to use the closeness to weave a bit of defiance into the gesture. But he knew he’d not quite managed it when his own skin buzzed because he’d liked it too much. The Master shivered, but not out of any feeling of being made uncomfortable.

 

“You know, I find it rather charming when you try to lord it over me. It’s something like watching a child imitate his parents. The way you always try to appropriate my tricks, like you’ve never so much as seen anyone else’s—really, I’m flattered. Now get to work.”

 

With a snarl the Doctor freed him and slammed his mouth down, taking the Master’s cock in him to the root and working as quickly as possible. The Master went from mildly agitated to fully stiff in the space of moments. The Master gasped and pushed his hips forward so that he was as deep as possible in the Doctor’s throat. In a second he’d recovered and was tugging the Doctor off him by his curls.

 

“What  _exactly_  do you think you’re doing?” The Master panted.

 

The Doctor looked up at the Master’s face, down at the abruptly hard length of his cock, and back up at his offended expression. The Doctor drew in both his cheeks in an elaborate sucking motion, rolling his eyes.

 

“Yes,  _obviously_ , but not as if you can’t  _wait_  to be done with it,” the Master looked exasperated, seeming a bit disgusted with him. “You’re either completely incapable in this regeneration, or completely insensate. Try it again,  _properly_ , if you think you  _can_. And take your damn time about it!”

 

The Master shook his head, but then hissed out a long breath as soft lips, gentle this time, caught  _just_  the head of his cock and lapped at the slit like a cat consuming at a bit of cream. The Doctor’s hand busied itself with the shaft, moving up and down at a leisurely pace that made the Master squirm. His legs splayed wider in the chair on either side of the Doctor.

 

He lifted a hand instinctively to push the Doctor’s mouth further down, but the Doctor batted him off with a his other hand and proceeded to take him in inch by slow inch, sometimes sliding further back up to slowly descend again. His hand came to rest instead on the Doctor’s head, bobbing with the motion of it. The white curls were soft, and the Doctor’s lips were soft and the heat on the Master’s flesh was softer still.

 

The Master made an undignified little noise. “Faster,” he commanded, but the Doctor just grinned at him smugly around the mouthful and slid back up to the tip again as if to chastise his impatience. The more the Master squirmed, the more even the motions of the Doctor’s mouth became.

 

“Come on,” the Master grit through his teeth, nearly begging.

 

The Doctor decidedly did  _not_  ‘come on.’ He was working at his own pace. The Master gripped the chair arm harder with his free hand, letting his head drop back, only to snap it forward again to watch the Doctor’s every motion, intent on not letting a detail escape him. The concentration in his eyes was an aphrodisiac. The slight scrape of the nails he drew almost nonchalantly across the Master’s inner thigh made him throb with need.

 

The sight of the Doctor between his legs was—he swallowed as the Doctor finally took the full length of him in his mouth, and whimpered when he deigned to work his throat around the Master—what had he been thinking just now?—Oh, the Doctor  _was_  still capable. Their eyes met, and a shadow in the shape of some deep feeling flickered across the Doctor’s before he looked down again, as if unable to hold the Master’s gaze.

 

“Look at me,” the Master insisted quietly, “I need you to look at me.”

 

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the Doctor’s eyes drifted up again, and he flicked his tongue around in his mouth around the captive flesh like a lash, as if to punish the Master for having stilled it. The Master moved his hand from the chair arm to the Doctor’s shoulder, squeezing it hard as the Doctor took him in and held him there, coming hard, fingers tight in case the Doctor tried to slide away without swallowing. Some ludicrous rush to rid his body of the Master’s come would have ruined it. The Doctor didn’t even try, and the Master eased himself out with a sort of caution, afraid to break this.

 

“You win the point,” he dropped his hand from the Doctor’s hair to trace the rim of his cheekbone, skating his fingertips up around his eye.

 

The Doctor smirked an  _of course I do_ , his expression very fond.

 


	3. Part III

PART III

 

The Doctor lay in bed staring at the ceiling the next morning. The Master got up and dressed, frowning in a few minutes when it became apparent the Doctor had no intention of doing the same.

 

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked. The Doctor didn’t so much as glance in his direction. The Master walked over to his side of the bed and knelt down, tone playful. “You can’t be planning on deserting me. Imagine how unimaginably dull my day will be without the benefit of your company.” The Doctor still didn’t respond. The Master touched his arm and the Doctor shrugged him off, turned away. For good measure he scooted a few inches over, effectively out of his reach.

 

“Are you ill?” The Master asked, confused. He heaved an exasperated sigh at the Doctor’s continued incommunicativeness. “Fine,” he groused, standing and walking to the door, “ _Don’t_ tell me. Though I’m afraid you’ll be terribly bored here alone.” He paused in the lintel. “I supposed I’ll see you this evening, then?” But he was still addressing the Doctor’s back. He snapped the door closed behind him with a slight growl of frustration.

 

 ***

 

He purposefully arrived home early. He smiled brightly at the Doctor, who’d looked up at the noise of his entry in the middle of fetching something from one of the suite’s kitchen cabinets. The Master hoped that whatever mood he’d been in that morning would have dissipated. He hung up his overcoat and came over to the Doctor, throwing an arm around his waist and pulling him into an embrace.

 

“I’ve managed to clear the entire afternoon,” he pronounced, leaning in to kiss him. The Doctor craned his neck away and disentangled himself neatly. He returned to the drawer, found what he’d wanted, and went over to the kitchen table.

 

“What’s wrong?” The Master asked. The Doctor actually did turn his head to look at him. His wore a dark, mocking smile that seemed to ask what he  _thought_  was wrong.

 

“Well if you’d simply indicate—” the Master snapped, irritation with the Doctor rising, but then broke off, confused, as the Doctor grabbed a stack of papers off the desk. Sheets and sheets, covered in circles. “Have you been writing all day?” He asked, perplexed, walking over to examine them. “At least let me see what you’ve been doing.”

 

The Doctor carried them over to the sink and took out the lighter he’d found in the cabinet. He flicked it on deftly and caught the corners of the papers. The Master made an automatic catch for them, but the Doctor turned and held them out of his way. He ran the edges through the trembling hot-orange cone of the flame, expression unfathomable as he turned his words this way and that better to catch fire. He dropped the papers when he was satisfied.

 

Disturbed, the Master watched him. When the ashes curled in the sink, shrank, and dissipated, the Doctor turned on the tap with a dismissive flick. The Master swallowed.

 

“If you’d tell me,” he tried. The Doctor opened his mouth to let out a harsh chuckle, and couldn’t. He turned a look of frustration laced with loathing on the Master, who bristled defensively in the face of it.

 

“You know what you have to do to end this. It’s not complicated. It’s not more than I deserve, or more than you owe me. You’ve a terrible habit of making everything harder for yourself.” He turned and stalked towards the door, grabbing his coat off the hanger with too much force. It overbalanced, swung wildly and fell. The Doctor studied it rather than him.

 

***

 

The Master came back very late, having absorbed himself in project after project. He’d startled his assistants with his drive, only relenting and letting them go home in the early hours of the morning.

 

The Doctor wasn’t in bed. The Master’s eyes narrowed. He walked through the rooms of the suite hunting him, a stray, panicked thought insisting he’d been gone too long, the Doctor might have gotten out, might be anywhere. He might have simply disappeared into the city, which suddenly seemed vast and imposing, now that the Doctor might be missing in it—but the Master told himself their mercenary guard was better than that.

 

Still, the Master relaxed slightly, finding him sitting up on a couch in the library reading. He wanted to make some sarcastic comment about the Doctor having sat up waiting for him as an apology for his rudeness earlier. But he knew himself better than that. He’d mean it, and the Doctor would hear how much in his voice, and it wouldn’t come off properly as a joke. It wouldn’t sound like anything more than an admission of need.

 

But then he noticed the Doctor was dressed for bed, with a blanket draped over him.

 

“I thought we were past this,” he gestured at the Doctor’s makeshift arrangement. Tiredly, the Doctor turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Look, don’t be ridiculous. Come to bed. It’s late. We’ll have it out in the morning.” The Doctor put his book down and folded his arms over his chest. The Master could either drag him there himself or call in the guards to witness their embarrassing domestic dispute. He wasn’t coming under his own steam.

 

“Fine,” the Master hissed. He returned to their bedroom to undress, scattering bits of clothing on the floor, uncharacteristically disorderly in his annoyance.

 

Properly attired for sleep, he returned to the library with a pillow and blanket, resisting the childish urge to drop both on the Doctor’s head. He pulled the other sofa alongside the Doctor’s, dragging the Oriental rug out of alignment in the process. He pushed the couches fully together. He picked up his supplies from the ground, placed them on the sofa and glared at the Doctor pointedly.  


“You’re absolutely certain you wouldn’t prefer the bed?” His tone oozed sarcasm. “We’re a trifle old for sleep-over arrangements.” The Doctor simply pressed further into his couch, as if he could hide from the Master in the seam. The Master plucked the book from his hand, turned out the light and clambered onto the couches. In the dark, he tried to gather the Doctor’s resisting limbs to him.

 

“I’ve put up with quite enough from you today,” the Master whispered as the Doctor struggled, “Now come here. Don’t make me do something you’ll regret.”

 

With a soft exhalation, the Doctor let himself go pliable, and the Master wrapped his arms around him. After an unsatisfying minute or so he picked up the Doctor’s arm and placed it over his own waist. He tried not to wince at the way it fell over his body as if it were an insensate object.

 

“You were fine yesterday,” the Master murmured to him, “And the day before. It’s a little late to play coy.”  _Still_  nothing. Upping the ante, he pressed his lips to the Doctor’s ear. “We spent a whole day just touching each other. And yesterday you sucked me off and smiled about it. I’m sure you remember.” He ran a hand down the Doctor’s back, letting it come to rest proprietarily on his ass. “I know I do.” He ran his tongue down the line of the Doctor’s ear and felt him tremble, smirking to have elicited a reaction, wanting more. “You bite your lower lip when you come,” he half-taunted, “I  _like_  it.”

 

The Doctor, moving suddenly, wrenched the Master’s palm up from his ass and started to trace on it. The Master chuckled, observing the Doctor’s clenched, angry expression, so infinitely better than his blank disregard—self-righteous and glaring at him, just aching to be corrected. He didn’t mind the Doctor like that a bit.

 

 _Yesterday I let you goad me into something regrettable. I should have known better. I rewarded your ridiculous behavior. It was wrong._ The Master, annoyed by the Doctor’s dismissal of what had been, for him, an incredibly intimate encounter, grinned unsympathetically.

 

“I hardly goaded you the day before that,” he pointed out. “In fact I don’t recall having had to say a single word.”

 

The Doctor took a long, calculating pause before responding.  _We have a certain history,_  his fingers were tentative,  _and I let myself fall prey to nostalgia._

 

“Incredible,” the Master hissed, stung, “that you could be this capable of lying to yourself.”

 

As if the Master’s anger had emboldened him, the Doctor pushed further.  _It meant nothing. It can’t mean anything, not like this. Not anymore. How could it, when you’ve done **this**  to me?_The Master snatched his hands back as if they’d been scalded.

 

“You’re a fool,” he sneered, “and as usual you’re wrong.”

 

The Doctor reached out to say something else and the Master scoffed at him, rolling over, effectively shutting him down. He heard the Doctor sigh, and then settle. When he was sure the Doctor was asleep he turned back around. He watched the Doctor’s chest rise and fall, his lips part invitingly in sleep. The Master observed the bright white of his hair in the pitch room, and, giving in to his compulsion, threaded his fingers through it.

 

He tugged the Doctor to him, just slightly. In unconscious innocence the Doctor fell into his arms, nuzzled into his neck and threw an arm around him, holding him tightly. His body molded into the Master’s as if by design.

 

“You’re mine,” he whispered, and the Doctor stirred in his sleep but didn’t contradict him. He ran a hand down the Doctor’s back, pressing the base of his spine to angle the Doctor even closer to him. “You’ll always be mine,” he promised.

 

 ***

 

In some ways getting what he wanted and then having it taken away was harder.

 

He threatened repercussions the next morning and the Doctor came with him, uncommunicatively staring straight ahead, taking no interest whatsoever in the things the Master attempted to direct his attention to.

 

“Docile as a cow,” the Master taunted, desperate for his attention. The Doctor wouldn’t even roll his eyes. His determination to punish both of them for his lapse was an act of self-control the Master could have admired, had it not been leveled at him.

 

In the afternoon they met with an off-planet ambassador from a near-by commercial centre about importing some terraforming equipment that the Master couldn’t be bothered to make himself. The man tried to address one of his questions to the Doctor, who just turned to glare at the Master. The ambassador, worried he’d made a gaff, rushed to correct his error.

 

“I’m sorry, is there a cultural prohibition against addressing your partner? I meant no offense. We know so little about this planet.”

 

“We’re not from here, actually,” the Master corrected, loath to be mistaken for a human among good company and exceedingly annoyed with the Doctor. “And there isn’t one. He’s practicing elective mutism out of sheer petulance. If we could return to the matter of the terraforming module?”

 

“Of course,” the ambassador conceded, doing his best to politely ignore the vitriolic expression the silent man directed at the unflappable Master.

 

***

 

The Doctor slept in bed that night, apparently having conceded that point to the Master. The Master folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. The Doctor did the same, hands down by his side, carefully not touching the Master at any point. In identical black pajamas their bodies made stark parallel lines against the white sheets.

 

“I’m not enjoying this,” the Master offered. “How could I be? The only person on the entire planet I’ve the slightest desire to have a conversation with,” he didn’t extend it beyond the planet to the universe at large, because that was better left unsaid, even if he suspected they both knew it was true, “and he won’t do the one small, simple thing I’ve asked of him. And believe it or not, I actually enjoy talking to you.” He smiled, self-deprecatingly, dropping his left hand down to rest by his hip. “Do you need encouragement? I miss the sound of your voice. Is that sentimental enough for you, Doctor? You always did like a cloying declaration.”

 

The Doctor breathed. A soft, thin, sound. He moved his hand just a touch letting it meet the Master’s. The Master casually laced their fingers together.

 

“I wonder,” the Master continued, still taking in the crown molding, “Every hour, if this will be the one. If this is when you fall. If you’re going to give in because you  _want_  to, or because you can see how much your refusal pains me, and how childishly stupid it is to deny me, and yourself. Either would do. I’d prefer both, naturally, but then I so rarely get what I want with you.”

 

The Doctor curled his fingers down over the Master’s knuckles, silently sympathetic, but firm. Unwavering.

 

“Not tonight then,” the Master conceded. “Well. Goodnight then, Doctor.”

 

They had a million tomorrows between them, and sometimes he could see them, stretched out before them like infinity. And on those nights he was patient.

 

***

 

The Master came home, using lunch as a pretext to himself. He found the Doctor still in bed, enjoying a cup of tea and reading the morning paper, which had just started re-circulating. This docility, from the Doctor of all people, offended him to the bone. It evidenced the Doctor’s stupid, unshakable depression, when he should be active and happy in the Master’s company. He was determined to provoke the Doctor into some other response.

 

“If you’re going to lie there all day I might as well get some use out of you,” the Master pronounced, taking off his jacket and pulling off his tie.

 

The Doctor gave him a  _Do you **really**  intend to do this?_ look that seemed to find him incapable of what he indirectly threatened.

 

“I’m perfectly serious,” the Master assured him, “I have every intention of taking you up on what amounts to an invitation.” He gestured at the Doctor, dressing gown, bed rumpled hair and all. “Next time you might consider not behaving like an invalid.” He turned to fetch a bottle off the bureau. “Or coming  _with_  me,” he muttered.

 

When he turned around the Doctor wasn’t in any greater dishabille than he had been when the Master walked in.

 

“Do you need me to make this about consequences?” The Master asked, voice brittle. Every day the Doctor was close and untouchable in equal measure. It was driving him half mad. The Doctor didn’t so much as nod, just starred at him with hard, apathetic eyes that unnerved the Master. But he shouldered the weight of that disconcerting stare, finished undressing and sat down on the bed.

 

The Master reached over to touch the Doctor’s face. His thumb rubbed over a contact point. “I’ll stop, if you tell me to stop. All you have to do it tell me no. And then I won’t have to force the issue, and will I? Just say ‘no,’ Doctor.” The Master’s voice was a curious mix of bitterness and pleading. The Doctor looked at him with an expression of pity that made the Master want to shut his eyes so he didn’t have to see it. So be it.

 

“Well. Now you, then.” The Master gestured to the Doctor’s clothes. His voice had shed that vulnerability, and now it didn’t broke compromise. The Doctor pulled off his dressing gown and tossed it to the side. He turned over, pushing his face into the pillow, not wanted to give away anything by his expression.

 

“Turn over,” the Master wouldn’t have it, and he poured the accumulated ire of the past days into his words even as he briskly coated his fingers with the gel from the bottle, “You look at me when we’re together. You’re thankful for what I give you. You’re where you want to be. You can protest as much as you like, but your body’s not capable of lying to me.”

 

Reluctantly, the Doctor did as he was told, bearing his over-communicative expression to the Master’s tenacious, seeking gaze.

 

“There you are,” the Master pronounced. He slipped a finger into him and watched the Doctor’s eyes flare, watched him bite down on a gasp. “And there,” he smirked. But the Doctor managed to school his face into a featureless mask, and the Master became exasperated. Now that he knew how this version of the Doctor eyes shone when he wanted the Master just as much as the Master wanted him, it was harder to ignore the absence of that light.

 

“I’m not accepting passive resistance as adequate participation. Move, Doctor.” He snapped, and the Doctor looked at him, defiantly refusing to comprehend his meaning. “You hips,” the Master specified, “You know how.”

 

Slowly, grudgingly, the Doctor began to squirm on the Master’s finger. Satisfied, the Master inserted another, waiting until the Doctor’s hips jumped up to meet him to add a last. Watching, feeling the Doctor work himself on his fingers was an exquisite ratcheting up of the already high tension between them. He pushed the Doctor’s legs up, shoving himself into him. He let out a relieved shudder at finally being  _in_. He snapped his hips and watched the Doctor’s head fall back, exposing his long throat like an offering. The Doctor recovered enough to brace himself with a hand on the Master’s chest, but then his fingers trembled into shapes.

 

 _I hate this_ , the Doctor spelled, quick as he could, Gallifreyan words blossoming on the Master’s skin thought-quick, sinking through into his blood, poisonous,  _I hate what you make me, I hate y—_

 

Frantically needing the Doctor not to say another word, the Master seized his fingers and drew them into his mouth, sucking hard at the offending digits. The Doctor’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes fluttered shut. He panted hard, would have keened if he’d had the voice to do it.

 

Hate  _that_ , the Master thought, triumphant, letting the fingers go when the Doctor was soundlessly thrashing on the bed below him, his head tossing mindlessly. He went deeper and deeper, further, and took more. The Master got inexorably nearer to coming, felt tight and coiled and  _almost_ , but—

 

Helplessly, he placed a hand to the Doctor’s temple, with the tentative, almost painful grace with which pilgrims touch their long-sought idols. “Say my name,” he commanded, but he was aware it sounded as if he was begging, and aware that he didn’t care how he had to change his tone to hear the Doctor call his name, psychically or verbally, in ecstasy right now.

 

“Please,” he whispered, “Just say it. Let me in, I need to feel you. Doctor!” The painfully incomplete version of the name brought almost as much tension as it released. But the Master said it because he  _needed_  to name him, and even the broken name was something tangible, something near-familiar on his tongue. “Doctor please, just  _say_  it.”

 

The Doctor shut his eyes against the lost look on the Master’s face, and came with a soft sigh like despair. The Master sped up and took him harder, fueled by a savage hurt, pounding into him as if he could fuck the word out of his body. He came with swimming blackness behind his eyes and a pleading noise choked in his throat.

 

“You came,” the Master spat, looking down at the Doctor with a sense of desperate pride at the debauchery he’d wrought below him.

 

When he came back out of the shower to dress and return to work the Doctor was nowhere in sight. There was a note in the middle of the rumpled bed.

 

 _You could have been anyone,_  it read, and the Master crumpled it in a shaking fist.

 

 ***

 

Taking the Master’s somewhat demonstrative advice, the Doctor got out more. Though not, as the Master had hoped, at his side. For the remainder of the week the Doctor puttered around the hotel, turning the kitchen into a lab he puttered about in to achieve some semblance of normality. He sourced samples from the garden, or simply read in it.

 

There was, as he’d ascertained early on, airtight security around the hotel, and no way to get a message, much less himself, in or out. Thus the Doctor was quite surprised to see a skinny, tow-headed human boy who looked about sixteen, dirty and carrying a gun, striding down a in the hotel corridor. The boy spotted him and raised his weapon, eyes wide and panicked.

 

The Doctor held up his hands, conciliatory, and wondered how he could question what the boy was doing here, how he’d gotten in. A shot sounded, and boy jerked wildly, red blossoming across his torso. The boy brought a hand to the bullets, instinctively moving to nurse the wound, and fell with almost a spin. The Doctor whirled and saw the Master at the head of a few mercenaries. The Master looked not annoyed, as the Doctor might have expected him to be at the obvious security breech, but vaguely worried.

 

The Doctor took off in a run towards the boy, who lay already still on the ground. Even knowing it was useless, he tried to take his pulse. When the Doctor drew his hand back from the wrist it was wet and red. He could hear the Master walking behind him. He turned the boy’s body over and let his obvious youth, his wide-fear struck eyes, say what he would have, had he words.

 

“He was carrying a gun,” the Master said, already defensive. He was committed to his course because there was no taking it back now, and because in some way he knew he was wrong. “He might have fired on you. He was obviously here to kill me.” And all that might have been true, but the Doctor had lives to spare, and he would have lost one willingly to preserve a child.

 

Nothing he was carrying indicated what he was here for—the panicked confusion in his eyes when he’d seen the Doctor didn’t indicate a planned assassination. The boy must have been part of some resistance cell, out on assignment. Information gathering, maybe, to bring the lay of the compound back to his friends.

 

The Master didn’t seem terribly surprised by the intrusion. He would have been blustering angrily or whining about human ingratitude if this was the first he’d heard of rebel developments. If he’d suspected the presence of a cell capable of getting someone inside their hotel, the Master would have cheerfully overseen interrogations. He would have murdered confirmed resistance members as guiltlessly as a farmer culled troublesome animals from his herd. All while the Doctor’s back was turned—no need to mention the grittier aspects of his new world order to him, he wouldn’t understand it was  _necessary_. One glance up at the Master’s carefully guarded expression confirmed the Doctor’s estimation.

 

 _And you let him touch you,_  he told himself,  _ **this**  is what you let yourself have._ He wanted to flee from his own accusation like he’d jump from scalding water if he accidentally exposed his skin to it. But he held it there, made himself feel it. Let the knowledge, the shock (Oh he _shouldn’t_  have been surprised. But he always was.) make him almost physically sick. The Doctor hoped he could learn the feeling. Could use it like a weapon against his body and his too-fond mind when they protested stupidly that they remembered the Master, that they still wanted him, needed him.

 

The Doctor passed a hand through the child’s hair. He shut the small, brown eyes. He turned to the other Time Lord with the same look of pained loathing that he’d given the Master the first time he’d killed. When the Doctor had left him. Silently he stood, throwing the Master’s hand off his shoulder and stalking back to their bedroom, shaken by proof of the Master’s callousness, and too angry at him to want to do anything but rest in a dark room, far away from everything. He never really learned to expect this of the Master. He always, illogically, hoped for better of him. It hurt every time he was proved wrong.

 

 

 ***

 

 

Diplomatically, the Master waited until evening to check up on him. He intensely disliked when people who weren’t him pointed guns at the Doctor. To feel that thrill of power in his own hands, to hold the Doctor’s life like the precious thing it was, was to know that it was  _his_ , and that  _he_  was entirely, absolutely the Master’s. With a weapon at his throat, no word of the Doctor’s could falsely, carelessly revoke that bond. The Doctor could never strip him of a power he  _took_  instead of needing given to him. And that brought him satisfaction.

 

But that other people should usurp that privilege, people who might not  _stop_ , disgusted and horrified him. The very sight of it was a trespass. Some little  _human_  boy turning a gun on the Doctor in their own home—he’d been distracted all day with the low burning rage of it.

 

These rebels really were getting bolder than was amusing. The Master would have to make some gesture of reprisal. He knew it would cheer him to take the Doctor, to prove to himself that the Doctor was fine, was so perfectly alive. When they were young there was little they’d liked better than enjoying each other in the wake of some danger, just to prove they’d survived.

 

He found the Doctor curled in a ball on their bed, sitting up against the headboard. All the lights of the suite were off. Slowly, the Master unfolded the Doctor’s unresisting limbs from their bent pose. He undressed the Doctor, not wanting to fight him and make him do it himself. When he was similarly stripped, he pulled the Doctor down flat on the bed, covering his body with his own.

 

The Doctor’s eyes were glass-empty, as if he was somewhere very far away. It was with a sort of numb horror the Master realized that the Doctor’s eyes were so bright because he was struggling not to cry. The emotion flickering behind his still face was shame and indignation and disgust, not carefully hidden desire. Not this time.

 

He put the Doctor’s hand on his hip and held it there.

 

“Want me,” he demanded, but his voice curdled into something uncertain, “Can’t you just—” he broke off. Carefully, he removed himself from the Doctor and sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.   


“Was I supposed to let you be shot?” He asked. “Are you asking me for that? Because that’s too much. Even for you.” He wasn’t sure himself whether he meant ‘even for you to ask, after all the ridiculous other things you demand,’ or whether he was admitting there were things he wasn’t capable of, not even if the Doctor promised him everything in exchange for them. Not even if he could believe that promise.

 

“You’re constantly asking why I don’t understand something’s wrong. And you ask it like there’s a color I can’t see. But you’re an intelligent man, Doctor, and you know it isn’t so uncomplicated.” The Master folded his hands in his lap, not knowing what to do.

 

He closed his eyes and shivered when a tentative finger traced across his shoulder blade.  _Can it be enough for you that I say no? Can you be someone I can be with and stay myself?_

 

“I never wanted you to be anything else.”

 

 _Then stop._  The touch trembling across his flesh.  _You can’t have me and Earth._

 

The Master chuckled. “I’m not the one who’s obsessed with the planet. Earth’s of very little importance to me.” He said it to avoid verbally admitting that he chose the Doctor without reservation, almost eagerly. “But that isn’t enough for you, is it?”

 

 _No,_ the Doctor admitted,  _but I’m not fool enough to think I can have everything in an instant. And it’s something._

 

“It’s a start.” The Master offered, and gasped when the Doctor kissed the skin he’d been drawing on hard, running his mouth up along the shoulder blade, settling on the Master’s neck and kissing him there.

 

He turned fast as he could and bore the Doctor down, laughing when the Doctor dragged him down with him and met him, arching his back hard into a passionate kiss.

 

“You’d come with me,” the Master pressed him still by the shoulders, “No tricks, no evasions, you’d come.” The Doctor looked uncertain. He was still unable to tell what the Master would do in the wider universe; still afraid of the death he’d seen today. He shook his head no. The Master supposed that saying he could give up the Earth had to mean little while he was still in occupation of it.

 

“But you do want this?” He raked his eyes down the Doctor’s body. The Doctor didn’t indicate anything, but his tongue darted out unconsciously to his dry lips, and the Master crushed their mouths together to taste it. The Doctor pushed him off and the Master’s eyes widened, a bit panicked, but after a second the Doctor lay back down, acquiescent. He nodded, once, and put his hand on the Master’s shoulder, stroking lightly.

 

“Get me ready,” the Master asked, and without nonverbal sarcasm the Doctor grabbed the oil on the bedside table, unscrewing the cap and coating the Master’s hardness with it liberally. His fingers were defter than they needed to be, his touch more personal than he had let it be on previous days.

 

“Eager, are you?” The Master taunted, and the Doctor rolled his eyes and chucked the re-caped bottle over the side of the bed absently. Unable to wait longer the Master thrust in, and the Doctor clenched automatically. He brought a hand to the Doctor’s head and let his expression ask. The Doctor looked at him sadly, sympathetically, unable to afford his conscience a ‘yes.’

 

Instead the Doctor drew the Master’s palm down to his mouth and let his tongue spell out the Master’s name. The proper version. The modifier was a play in the Doctor’s mouth as it had always been, the possessive and possessed implications of ‘my Master’ flowing together in a lovely semantic confusion. It was a transgression of manners of the highest order for the Doctor to do that without permission, such intimacies being a thing of the distant past for them. But the Doctor traced it on his skin with bold eyes. And such a breach entitled,  _invited_ him to claim the same privilege.

 

“Doctor,” he gasped, almost disbelieving, letting the full version of the name spill out of his mouth at last. He surged into the Doctor, repeating the word in time with his thrusts as he fucked him. The Doctor’s hand anchored his hip. His own hand lingered lightly over the Doctor’s mouth, so the Doctor could trace his own repetitions and scattered endearments.

 

When he removed it, he pressed it to the bed in a fist for leverage, bending down and kiss the Doctor. His eyes shut in bliss when the Doctor raised his head, wrapping his hands around the Master’s head, dragging fingers through the Master’s hair, half lifting off the bed to kiss him back eagerly. He mouthed ‘more’ into the Master’s lips, and the Master smirked into his.

 

Laying back down the Doctor explored the line of the Master’s neck and shoulders with his hands, half fascinated by the tension in the muscles, half massaging his encouragement.

 

“Let me see you touch yourself,” the Master’s eyes dragging down to the Doctor’s erection. The Doctor nodded and did, long pulls in time with the Master’s thrusts.

 

“When you were alone between my visits, when you did that for yourself, you thought about me, didn’t you?” The Master asked, almost casually. The Doctor flushed, looking adorably embarrassed, and reached a hand up to smack the Master's chest lightly. 

 

“I  _knew_  it,” the Master laughed, self-congratulatory, kissing the Doctor, whose lips softened under his, because he wasn’t really all that put out. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Doctor.” He gave him another light peck, just out of fondness. “My dear, dear Doctor,” he repeated, relishing the syntactic indulgence of the double-possessive.

 

The Doctor brought the inside of the Master’s wrist to his mouth and returned the endearment along the pulse point. As much as he enjoyed the feeling of the Doctor’s body clenching around him, he loved that sure tongue, drawing sweetness on the thin skin just above his blood, at least equally.

 

 ***

 

The Master slipped out early that morning. He couldn’t stand for the Doctor to elect not to come with him after all of that, and so he decided not to give him the chance to refuse. He went about the business of his day distracted. He could  _leave_  at any moment. He really could. And the Doctor said no, but if the Master brought him with him, if it was de facto, then there would be no excuses to hide behind and the Doctor would have to—

 

But then he’d conquered a world, and to give that up because the Doctor couldn’t accept it was weak. He wanted to suggest it was  _pathetic,_ but he avoided that adjective even in his head now. It was like a wound—he knew better than to touch it, but he couldn’t help himself from lingering on it. His mind revolved around the word, circling it warily. Perhaps he should force the issue. Stay. Break the Doctor into some new shape that could understand the beauty of power, embrace it even, and love him in the same moment.

 

He was walking down a corridor of the hotel, heading back up to grab some papers from his office, approaching the guards on the door at the end of the hall with brisk steps. A loud crack sounded, and the Master raised an eyebrow when one of the guards fell to his knees and then, after a flurry of noise that startled the Master, to the ground, clearly shot dead. His companion, at a shouted command from the Master, raced after the unseen assailant. The Master reached the body and bent down. Some of the bullets had bounced helplessly off the advanced armor he’d stocked the mercenaries with, but one or two had lodged doggedly in the vulnerable joints of the neck plating.

 

The Master picked up a hot shell from the ground, examining it. Human made. The rebels weren’t getting assistance from off planet, then. He palmed the bullet distractedly when it had cooled, wondering how human-only forces had managed to organize well enough to infiltrate his command center.

 

The only source of well-trained dissent unaffected by his recent security investigations would be the UNIT camp. He hadn’t wanted to do anything to them that might get back to the Doctor—he’d been planning to hold the right to see them out for further leverage, and he wanted them to have nothing but fair reports of their living conditions.

 

Opening his palm, he frowned—where he’d clenched his hand into a fist around the metal, his flesh had gone black, as if burned. His eyes widened, recognizing what the humans had managed even as he dropped the bullet. They’d coated it in acetylsalicylic acid. How could they have known to? Oh but of course the Doctor would have had to tell his human associates not to ever give him an aspirin tablet for an injury if he was incapacitated. A clever enough person could have deduced that was a biological weakness common to his species rather than a personal peccadillo, and the chemical compounds involved were in household use on this planet.

 

He followed the path taken by his pursuing guard down the corridor, hearing more firing from somewhere farther away. He ordered the guard standing over the slain intruder to attend to it. He didn’t recognize the dead man as anyone from the UNIT camp—he’d seen all of them at their sentencing, too brief a time ago to feel he was making an error now. They must have managed to recruit outside assistance for the raid. People who didn’t know what he looked like, who would easily shoot the Doctor as well as him.

 

Acetylsalicylic acid wasn’t a kind chemical. It was one of the few means of death that didn’t allow for the possibility of regeneration. If it entered the bloodstream a Time Lord boiled from the inside. The Master took the gun off the dead man and headed up the stairs to the penthouse. If the rebels were intelligent they’d already cut the elevator cables, and he had a sinking feeling they were. He needed to get out of the building as quickly as possible.

 

*** 

The Doctor was halfway down the stairs, listening carefully to the sounds of the fighting, trying to determine their origin by echoes and ricochets. He was hoping to slip out of the hotel in the chaos, and was surprised to meet the Master halfway. But surely Master would have gotten out of the building and into his TARDIS, wherever he’d managed to hide it, the instant fighting broke out? The ultimate survivor, how could he not be long gone? Absolute shock registered on the Doctor's face.

 

“You  _idiot_ ,” the Master responded, grabbing the Doctor by the wrist and turning to run back downstairs, “ _Naturally_  I came to retrieve you. Come on. I think we may have overstayed our welcome.”

 

They burst into the lobby. “We’re through the far doors. My TARDIS is in the garden, disguised as a tool shed.” Before they could make the length of the room the Doctor tugged his hand free.

 

“We really don’t have the time to argue about it,” the Master insisted. The Doctor edged towards the main door. The Master pulled out his TCE.

 

“You’re coming with me,” he hissed, “So just move.” The Doctor stared at him, almost daring him to use the deadly weapon. The Master’s hand wavered on it.

 

“They’re using acetylsalicylic bullets, Doctor.” The Master refused to plead with him, but his insistence was tinged with desperation. He took a step closer to the Doctor, shaking the TCE for emphasis. “This will only kill you once. It’s far better than the alternative—you might regenerate into someone less  _stubborn_ , for one. I’m sorry to say we’ve not been invaded by your UNIT friends, and I doubt these people, whoever they are, have received specific orders to spare you.” They stood very close. The Master’s eyes were frantic. “Doctor,” he used the possessive form, so recently his again, his tone brittle, “You—”

 

The debate was cut off when strange troops poured into the lobby. The Doctor looked around wildly, recognizing none of them. One of the soldiers raised his gun, pointed it directly at the Doctor, and fired.

 

It was a hard clump of seconds before the Doctor realized what was going on. A voice he knew, some familiar voice he couldn’t place, was screaming at the soldiers to stop. The Master swayed, just a touch, and unthinkingly the Doctor caught him in his arms. The Master’s eyes were too wide. He coughed once, a little blood welling up in the corner of his mouth, dribbling out and down.

 

There must be blood in his lungs, the Doctor thought, the horror of it coming a second after the conclusion, syncopated like a heartbeat. The Master had been shot. More than once. The Doctor placed a hand to the Master’s black jacket and it came up sticky. The Master’s knees seemed to loose strength and, holding him, the Doctor sank down to the floor with him. The Master had stepped in front of the shot meant for the Doctor. Unthinkingly, the Doctor tried to say something to him. When words wouldn’t come he pressed his hand to the Master’s face and opened himself as wide as he could bear.

 

There was pain in the Master’s mind, and a growing cloudiness, veined with a hard, bright flash of pleasure upon feeling the Doctor moving through him, and entering the Doctor in return.

 

 _Don’t do this_ , the Doctor pleaded, stupid and desperate because there was nothing that the Master could do about it now. The opportunity to make a choice had come and the Master had met it with his typical conviction. His strange, unfathomable bravery—he’d slink like an eel out of any confinement, plead for his own life as if the humiliation was nothing to him, but when pressed, on certain, fundamental points, the Master was unyielding. The Master had met the prospect of the Doctor’s death with his own. The Doctor couldn’t believe what he’d done, and he whispered it through their minds like an accusation, unable even to finish saying it.  _You—you_ —

 

The Master seemed surprised himself at what he’d done, and yet it was obvious. Of course this was how it ended. Naturally this was how he died. A whole battery of thoughts rushed against the darkness closing on him. He could feel his blood rise, burning, and he hurt, but for a little while longer he could push the pain aside, sheltered as he was in the Doctor’s mind. He was furious at the man who’s shot him. He was disappointed at all the knowledge, all the plans, and the ambition flickering out in him, guttering like a candle flame. Still possessive, still selfish, he hoped the Doctor didn’t move on, couldn’t forget him in the centuries he’d live through after the Master’s death. He wanted the Doctor to kiss him one last time.

 

At the thought from him, the Doctor’s lips were on his, and it was a good last kiss, chaste and felt.  _I love you,_  the Doctor offered, like a bribe to bring him back, like a release of something caged in him.  _Always, I’ve always_ — But it was too late for that. Too late for them. The Master didn’t say it back because it was evident. The Doctor knew. He wanted to say something in farewell, but he didn’t have the strength. And what words could possibly have been a fitting end to—

 

He gasped, and it seized through his muscles like a felt scream, and he wanted to sob, and then it was gone, and so was he.

 

Shocked, the Doctor studied the body in his lap. In his arms. He felt a light touch on his shoulder. He looked up and recognized the face as Jo, small and worried. “Doctor?” She tried, and he started, because it wasn’t his right name. It lacked something he would never hear again. In his confusion, he touched his face and found it wet. He turned back to the body below him and tried to use the moisture to clean the blood off the Master’s chin. He only succeeded in smearing it a bit, forming a red blur that marred the Master’s skin, paler already in death than it had been in life.

 

He forced himself to think the words  _he’s gone._

 

“Doctor, say something,” Jo pleaded, tone worried, “It’s all right now. We’ve come to rescue you.” When his blank expression didn’t change, Jo tried to explain further. “We tried to stop them shooting, but we were too late. Please, say something Doctor!”

 

The Doctor removed his hand from the Master’s cold face, lowering him to the ground as gently as a sleeping child. He wanted to say something irrational and childish, like ‘wake up.’ He wanted to scream. He wanted to pour out his feeling and be empty. But he could do none of those things.

 


End file.
